Shimmer / Symudliw
physical dialogues between form and movement/ deialogau gorfforol rhwng ffurf a symudiad
by/gan Eeva-Maria Mutka
Creative Buddy & Outside Eye/Cyfaill Creadigol & Llygad Allanol, Marega Palser
This project was made possible through funding from the Arts Council of Wales’s National Lottery Fund /
Gwnaethpwyd y prosiect hwn yn bosibl trwy arian o Gronfa Loteri Genedlaethol Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru.
Penpynfarch, Aug-Nov/Awst-Tachwedd 2020.
This project
Philosophy
Name of the project
Video 1
This project comprises 3 elements, presenting a fresh entry into perceiving Form: interweaving of
1) mark-making, novel physical objects (sculptures) and environments,
2) inhabiting these with performative response, and
3) recording these physical dialogues on film and photography.
In this moment in time we need to question how fixed our perceptions of the world are. Through art work that reveals the state of flux within ourselves and in the world we touch, we may begin to understand differently how everything is related (interbeing) and the choices we have available, about the balance between action and yield.
I am interested in the significance of how we go about making an image (the act of making the image), how we arrange the form in the space, and what this communicates. In this hugely unsettling time of shifting boundaries, can resonant images we create help in finding new capacity to cope and adapt?
I have called the project Shimmer/Symudliw as it captures my deep interest in the process of Perception. The way I approach materials and objects is about listening for response and questioning outlines, where I end and the other begins. I am also interested in the way an audience member meets the work, through the different aspects of artefact, live event and visual image, and how, like in a Venn diagram, many different perceptions may co-incide in a shimmering intersection. I like the fact that in Welsh the word consists of 'movement' and 'colour', and the Finnish word for shimmering, 'pailyva', implies the play of light which is also an important element in my work.
Below is a 6 minute video from my project, which was included in Tokyo Space Dance Online festival Sept 2020. This festival showed work of Tetsuro Fukuhara and 11 artists from around the world - short clips for 'chapters' from his Space Dance/New Butoh teaching: Affordance, Walking Dance, Paradise and Flower. (You can read more about Space dance if you click on 'i' info button on the right top corner of the video when it's playing.)
These scenes perhaps reveal different tones of a woman's voice, in dialogue with her environment, inner and outer.
"And I? I drink, I burn, I gather dreams.
And sometimes, I tell a story."
(Terry Tempest-Williams in When Women Were Birds)
Live performance/installation to come, as soon as the pandemic eases and opportunity arises.
